The Financial Burden of Cancer Has Become A Toxicity Like Hair Loss And Nausea

My good friend and fellow advocate Mike Scott (Prostate Cancer Info Link) introduced me to a new web site produced by the University of Chicago called Cost of Care (www.CostofCare.org). The site is designed around the novel idea that the cost we must pay for our cancer care has become another negative side effect or toxicity that we endure, along with our hair loss, our nausea, our pain and our distress, we suffer as we fight our cancer.

There has been a lot written about the horrendously escalating costs of our cancer medications, many of which have been artificially increased only as a result of the greed of some pharmaceutical companies. An example is a company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals whose business model is to buy other pharmaceutical companies and simply jack up the price of the treatment. They do not add any value, they do not make the drug or treatment better, all they do is raise the cost to the consumer, the insurance company and to society.

In some instances the high costs of cancer treatment is understandable. For the companies that take the significant risks involved in the research and development (R&D) of new drugs, the costs of their clinical trials and then the marketing of the approved product, it is reasonable for these companies to cover their financial risks, their investments and then to make a profit.

The bottom line is that our treatments are very expensive, they are getting more expe